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Throwback Thursday: Black Leaders Back in the Day

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Rep. Emanuel Cleaver (D-Missouri)

Back in the day, the bigger the 'fro, the more handsome the man underneath was perceived to be, a fact that did not escape Emanuel Cleaver, whose hair in this 1982 photograph with daughter Marissa, belies his genteel and modest demeanor. Not that he wasn't proud. Cleaver, who was a minister at the time, says that he boasted the number one or two afro, in terms of circumference, among Kansas City's clergymen. But these days, he lamented in a chat with BET.com, with a twinkle in his eye, "My 'fro won't grow no mo'."